Mike

Ball

Read Mike's bio and previous columns here

March 31, 2008

All Things Considered, I’ll Stick With My RTG Hair

A few weeks ago I described my hair color as “RTG.” This, of course, stands for Rapidly Turning Gray, and is a matter of pride for me.

Now I’m not talking about “sexy gray,” like Richard Gere or Anderson Cooper. Their gray hair is more of a fashion statement. In fact, I think those guys were salt-and-pepper in about the third grade, and I’m pretty sure they used that “silver fox” thing to charm the third grade chicks right out of their Twinkies.

No, I’m talking about the gray hair you get because you are old. Now, I have been working on getting old for a very long time. And through all those years I have filled most of my leisure hours with pastimes like scuba diving under frozen lakes, so I feel like I have pretty much earned every patch of white that has cropped up on my noggin.

In other words, rather than resisting the signs of all those passing years, I’m just plain happy to still be here.

Some guys do not agree with me on this. At the recent Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame induction ceremony, a dark-haired inductee named Dave Clark (from the 1960s British Invasion band the Dave Clark Five) smiled and waved at the cameras, flanked by two guys who appeared to be his grandfathers – bass guitarist Rick Huxley, and lead guitarist Lenny Davidson. Since they all knew each other in high school, I suspect old Dave might have had a little work done.

Of course, Iggy Pop, who will be 61 years old this April, also appeared on that Rock Hall Of Fame show, shirtless and without any sign of gray hair. I’m told that the secret in his case is that David Bowie had Iggy embalmed sometime in the mid 1970s.

Women have always waged a pitched battle against the signs of age by coloring their hair. Fluctuations from blonde to brunette have apparently exposed Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame inductee Madonna to so many toxic chemicals over the years that the girl, born and raised in Michigan, has been left with a debilitating British accent.

But I think the overall issue here is that most women fight this particular war a lot better than most guys do. They spend long hours and hundreds of dollars having experts color their hair, carefully blending colors and adding highlights to achieve that “natural look.”

Most guys, on the other hand, spend about seven bucks and seven minutes in the shower with a bottle of Grecian Formula attempting to recapture their lost youth. Rather than achieving any sort of a “natural look,” they wind up sporting more of a “black dog-fur helmet” motif.

A few years ago my friend Megan convinced me that I would look a lot better if I would let her give me a few blonde highlights to sort of disguise the gray. Ignoring the clearly flashing danger sign that she and a bottle of Clairol had already teamed up to make my wife look like Cher, I calmly read a book while Megan worked her magic.

The only further comment I care to make about that particular episode in my life is that, all things considered, bright flaming orange is probably not the best color for me.

So I guess the bottom line here is that now I just want to go gracefully into my golden years. Besides, Megan just told me that if I had a nose job and a little work done around my eyes, I would look a little bit like Richard Gere . . .

Copyright © 2008, Michael Ball. Distributed exclusively by North Star Writers Group. May not be republished without permission.